Thursday, May 19, 2016

RANDOM THOUGHTS #263

Steve Cole's thoughts on time
travel.

From time to time, Steven Petrick and I
(usually over dinner) will propose tactical challenges from historical
battles. Some of them involve time travel, and the idea of: "Your
mission is to take X to this battle and change the outcome. How are
you going to do it?"

In one
recent exercise, I imagined waking up in March 1940 with no directives
or preparations for what I was supposed to do. Being a patriotic
American I decided that I wanted to see Hitler defeated at a lower
cost in lives, and perhaps leaving America in a stronger position in
Europe after the war. How would I do that?

1. The first thing
I have to do is contact someone in the US government who will give me
a chance to prove that I am not insane. I decided to approach Wild
Bill Donovan, a man of vision who would later create the OSS and CIA.
I know that he traveled a lot (mostly to England) and that he had a
business in New York City. It would seem that a phone book would get
me to his office, and assuming he was not out of town, I would have
one chance to get an audience. My plan was to craft a document listing
lots of things I know from history (about him, FDR, Churchill, and the
US), and a few predictions. With luck, that would at least get me a
meeting. Then I just flat tell him that I'm a time traveler, that I
know he thinks I'm crazy, but if my predictions come true for a
German invasion of Norway and then France, I might be taken more
seriously. I could mention the Manhattan project, Ultra, Magic,
Bletchley Park, and a few other super-secret things no one knew about.
Presumably, if he didn't know, he knew someone who could say
"get this guy under lock and key." Sooner or later, I would
be taken seriously as a known time traveler.

2. Then it becomes a
matter of what to tell them. I would of course tell them anything they
wanted to know, but we'd have to discuss that. For me to just reveal
every surprise attack and tricky move and lucky break might change the
war in unpredictable ways, and might even let Hitler win. (It was
absolutely necessary that nothing happened to make Hitler less
ineffective. I have resolved in my own mind to save lives by telling
them about technological and tactical improvements that would make the
war less deadly and more efficient.)

3. For the Army, I
would start by telling them that the BAR was not going to work, and
neither was squad musketry. They needed to put a real machinegun into
every rifle squad, even if they just copied the German MG34. (I would
warn them not to use that awful Bren the British stuck themselves
with.) They also needed to skip tank destroyers and just put a decent
gun and decent armor on a slightly bigger version of the Sherman. I
would also mention that the light tanks would end up being of no real
use and that the Army would do better to build pure battalions of
Super Shermans. I would tell them to double the amount of infantry in
the armored divisions. Most of all, I would explain how the
replacement system wasted tens of thousands of lives and explain the
idea of a "replacement battalion" where every new soldier
would spent the first few days in the division (learning how to not
get killed). I would also tell them to let black men serve in combat
if they volunteered for it.

4. To help the Marines, I would
explain that the Reising rifle could not be maintained in the field
and they should just buy M-1 Garand rifles.

5. To help the Navy, well, the first and most painful thing I
have to do is ask them to cancel all of the Iowa-class battleships.
While they are things of beauty, they won't ever fight another
battleship and cheaper ships can do other missions. I would explain
the snorkel concept to the submarine service, and angled-deck carriers
to the aviation boys. I would also warn them to mount battleship radar
dishes where they have an unrestricted 360° view with no blind spot.
(Such a blind spot on the USS Washington almost caused us to lose
Guadalcanal.)

6. For the Army Air Forces, I could advise them to start
building P-47s and P-51s faster, and recommend that maybe the B-25 and
B-26 were just as good as each other and it might be cheaper to pick
one of them. I would also tell the Army Air Forces that the book (by
the Italian ace Douhet) saying that air power can win a war without
the Army or Navy is just wrong. Worse than wrong, it's total nonsense.
The Germans learned that when Goering (another disciple of Douhet)
failed to destroy the British Army at Dieppe.

7. I would then tell Eisenhower that he
needed to let Patton close the Falaise gap, force the British to cut
off the German 15th Army on the Sheldt instead of letting it escape,
cancel Market-Garden, and make Monty clear the river so that the port
of Antwerp could be used to support the entire war
effort.

About Me

Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. is a game-publishing company that creates and publishes games based on the Original Series of Star Trek. We have a contract with Paramount Pictures to do so. Posts and blogs that are not directly related to gaming are the opinions of the individuals who write them, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.